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When I began as a beta tester for Pottermore, I was in the middle of learning about ethnography in my first cultural anthropology class. It opened my eyes, so I decided that I would take the opportunity to record how the culture developed on Pottermore from the very beginning. The next step was to analyze the “fall” of Pottermore after I got over the shock. For me, Pottermore represents the very heart of culture: that it is organic, always changing and growing, and that it cannot be forcibly imposed. It comes from the people, the resources, the conditions, and the shared knowledge and creativity that they have to work with. Thanks for reading!

Uh oh. Rant time. History of Magic in North America has opened up a whole new can of worms………I felt uneasy reading it, and went looking to see if anyone else had felt the same discomfort. As you might know by now, several articles have been written on the subject– not only criticizing the mystification and generalization of Indians, but also the whole story of how the brief witch trials contributed to magical immigrants avoiding North America for much of history. Not only that, but the MACUSA predates the continental congress and even the concept of “The United States of America”–suggesting some connection or inspiration. My main quarrel with it, which I haven’t really seen addressed anywhere yet, is the portrayal of wizards and witches. They are basically spared any blame by history unless they were scourers. The message she makes is that English witches and wizards were not involved in the bloody westward expansion of Northern America. The question remains that if they were so good and powerful, why wouldn’t they stand up for their Indian “brethren” and fight back with magic? Because History, of course. Their innocence is what gives the articles that feeling of a bad textbook that is trying to sweeten history so that it doesn’t make the wrong people look bad. Even though I know it’s fiction, I can’t help but read with that same skepticism. Examples: “skin walkers,” she asserts, are actually animagi who have been falsely accused of evil. The bad wizards and witches were really fraud No-majs. Some wizarding folk were fleeing persecution in Europe and would often hide among the No-maj settler and Native American population. Witches in Salem were utterly innocent (while some of the judges were evil scourers!). In that last instance she would have done better to focus on the No-majs who were caught up in the hysteria instead of saying “a number of the dead were indeed witches” and then going on to describe the No-majs who had suffered. As though by necessity to spare the magical folk of blame and to make them these misunderstood good guys, they must be contrasted by the blatantly evil scourers. I have spent a lot of energy pondering how it could have been done better, but it is difficult to articulate my feelings about it, especially with everyone yelling “Relax, it’s only fantasy!” Basically, it feels too much like a rewrite of history than a parallel, magical history. As it has all been published on Pottermore (and since they promote a movie which likely draws directly upon the same historical concepts) I suppose they are “canon” now and cannot be taken back.

Yes, I definitely am interested in the Patronus quiz (I’m hoping that there will be hundreds of possibilities to increase variety– though that may be far-fetched. ) And you bring up a good point! That would have been a much different experience in the Old Pottermore because the common rooms would have all been abuzz with people discussing their patronus and creating art.

Oof– I’m sorry you only just now found out about the New Pottermore. It must have felt abrupt.

As far as Fantastic Beasts is concerned, I have high hopes for it. Although the characters we know don’t seem to be a part of it I think it will add to the scope and depth of the magical world by focusing on new characters and locations. The whole no-mage thing kinda bothers me…(since Americans still say “muggle” because they learned the word from the books. That does seem to be a paradox 0_0 . I’m not sure if no-mage will catch on.)